Cyber threats like data breaches, ransomware, and sophisticated hacking attempts pose grave risks to all businesses, governments, institutions and individuals. That’s why having a strong, comprehensive cybersecurity strategy is crucial.
One of the most respected and widely adopted frameworks for improving cybersecurity is the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF) from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This flexible, scalable framework provides guidelines to help organizations strengthen their cyber defenses and manage digital risks.
But what exactly is the NIST CSF, and how can it benefit your organization? Let’s dive in.
Understanding the Core Functions of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework
At the heart of the NIST CSF are five core functions that form the foundation of any comprehensive cybersecurity strategy:
Identify
This function helps an organization develop a thorough understanding of cyber risk. It involves taking inventory of critical assets, identifying vulnerabilities, and assessing the potential business impact of various threats to critical infrastructure cybersecurity. The identify function is about establishing a holistic view of your cybersecurity posture.
Protect
The protect function focuses on implementing the safeguards needed to limit the impact of a cybersecurity incident. This includes access controls, employee training, data security measures, and maintenance of protective technologies. The goal is to put the proper defensive controls in place based on your organization’s critical assets and risk tolerance.
Detect
No cybersecurity strategy is complete without quickly identifying when a breach or anomaly occurs. The detect function outlines processes for continuous monitoring, event analysis, and triggering alerts, helping organizations shorten the time between a cybersecurity breach and its discovery.
Respond
If a cyber incident does happen, the respond function equips organizations with the plans and procedures to take swift, effective action. This includes incident response planning, communications, mitigation, and continuous improvement. The goal is to minimize the damage and disruption caused by the attack.
Recover
The final function, recover, addresses restoring normal operations after a cybersecurity event. This includes recovery planning, communications, and implementing lessons learned to strengthen organizational resilience. The recover function helps ensure business continuity and prevent future attacks.
NIST Cybersecurity Framework: Implementation Tier List
While the NIST Cybersecurity Framework provides a comprehensive roadmap for improving cybersecurity, the path to full implementation can look quite different for organizations at various stages of cybersecurity maturity. To help guide the implementation process, the NIST CSF outlines four distinct “implementation tiers” that describe an organization’s cybersecurity capability and risk management practices.
Tier 1- Partial
For organizations in the partial tier, the focus should be establishing the NIST CSF’s foundational elements. This includes:
- Prioritize and Scope: Develop a basic understanding of the organization’s critical assets, key business objectives, and overall risk tolerance. Use this information to determine the appropriate scope for initial cybersecurity efforts.
- Orient: Assess the cybersecurity posture by inventorying assets, systems, and the regulatory/threat landscape. This provides visibility into the starting point.
- Create a Current Profile: Document how the organization manages cyber risks based on the NIST CSF’s functions, categories, and subcategories. This establishes a baseline for improvement.
The goal at the partial tier is to move the organization from a reactive, ad-hoc cybersecurity approach to a more structured and risk-informed one.
Tier 2 – Risk Informed
As the organization progresses to the risk-informed tier, the focus shifts to formalizing cybersecurity risk management processes:
- Conduct a Risk Assessment: Thoroughly evaluate the operational environment, emerging threats, and potential business impacts to determine cybersecurity risk levels.
- Create a Target Profile: Establish a defined, future-state vision for the organization’s desired cybersecurity risk management outcomes across the NIST CSF.
- Determine, Analyze, and Prioritize Gaps: Identify the gaps between the current and target profiles, then develop an action plan to address them.
At this stage, the organization demonstrates a more proactive, enterprise-wide approach to cybersecurity, but processes may still need more consistency and repeatability.
Tier 3 – Repeatable
Organizations at the repeatable tier have implemented a mature, organization-wide cybersecurity risk management program:
- Implement the Action Plan: To close the identified gaps, continuously monitor progress, and adjust to achieve the target cybersecurity profile.
The repeatable tier is characterized by consistent, documented processes that all stakeholders understand well. Cybersecurity is embedded into the organization’s culture and decision-making.
Tier 4 – Adaptive
Finally, the adaptive tier represents the pinnacle of cybersecurity maturity. At this level, the organization has achieved cyber resilience, agile response to threats, and full integration of cybersecurity risk management into overall business strategy.
Regardless of an organization’s starting point, the NIST Implementation Tiers provide a clear roadmap for progressing through the NIST CSF. Leaders can develop and execute a practical, measurable strategy for strengthening their cybersecurity posture by understanding their current tier and planning for the desired future state.
